A Serbian rights group, the Humanitarian Law Center (HLC) [advocacy website], announced Tuesday that it will be appealing a fine imposed [judgment, PDF, in Serbian] by the First Basic Court in Belgrade to compensate the Serbian Army Chief of General Staff for damages caused by allegations of war crimes in Kosovo during the 1998-1999 conflict. According to the HLC [press release], Natasa Kandic, the former head of the HLC, was in charge when the initial publication making the allegations [JURIST report] was released in 2012. The claim was filed [JURIST report] against her jointly with the HLC, and the court order a payment of USD $5,100 to be paid to the Army Chief. Kandic and the HLC claim the judgment was political [AP report], citing questionable conclusions by the court as well as potential illegal activity from the judge in order to protect the Army Chief.

In January Oliver Ivanovic, a Serbian politician in Kosovo, was sentenced to nine years in prison after being arrested [JURIST reports] in January 2014 for the murder and torture of Albanian civilians during the 1999 war where Kosovo fought for its independence from Serbia [BBC backgrounders]. In response to the widespread commission of war crimes during the conflict in Kosovo, the EU’s justice mission in Kosovo (EULEX) [official website] was created in 2008 [JURIST report] to assist in the effort of bringing perpetrators to justice. A EULEX prosecutor in the Kosovo Special Prosecution Office filed an indictment [JURIST report] against 15 defendants in November 2014 in the EULEX Mitrovica Basic Court. The individuals were accused of war crimes against civilians that occurred at a Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) detention center in Likovac in 1998. Fatmir Limaj, an ally of Prime Minister Hashim Thaci was acquitted [JURIST report] by EULEX in September 2014 for the third time after his retrial began [JURIST report] in April. Kosovo officially seceded [JURIST report] from Serbia in 2008.